76th Victory Day parade
- Thread starter nottyboi
- Start date
Also, let's not forget what happened to the Russians that were repatriated back to Russia after WW II ended.
Oh only the Russians commited war crimes lol. Oh! Stalin was a pig DUH!!. Yes all those things happened. Stalin committed great crimes against the Russian people. As for Poland, historically Russia and Poland have crossed swords for centuaries and great crimes have been committed by both sides. How about when the Polish resistance refused to help the Jews in the Ghetto uprising? They got their karmic reward when the Russian allowed the Germans to slaughter them in the Warsaw uprising. Fact is Victory Day celebrates those millions that fought the Nazis and their immense sacrifice, and becasue of them many Canadian, European and American lives were saved. If they had not fought, do you think the allies could have defeated Germany with all the resources of Russia at their disposal? Maybe, but it would have been 1000x harder. Probably nuclear. And the main point of the post - Its a KICK ASS Military parade.
The Polish resistance had no means to help ZOB during the uprising in the Ghetto. I'm not saying don't "celebrate", I'm saying be honest. The Germans and the Russians committed horrific crimes during the war and- Russians even after the war. The Soviet Union made the war possible in 1939 and until June of 41 it was on Hitler's side. As someone said- the real tragedy of WWII was that both sides could not lose.
The Soviet Union had a non-aggression pact with Germany, so did the UK remember? They were never on "Germanys side." The level of assistance from the Polish resistance remains controversial. Many say they could have done more. Yes Germany committed a lot of war crimes, as did Russia, but no one has clean hands in WWII. I don't see how the Soviet Union made the war possible, It was always possible. Tthe war was made likely by the WW1 Amistice agreement, some say a certainty.
Whitewash and revisionism. Not only did the Wermacht and the luftwaffe trained in the Soviet Union to circumvent the restrictions of the Versailles Treaty, both sides engaged in the exchange of the political prisoners- anti fascists and even German communists from Russia to Germany and that was BEFORE the war has even started. You can imagine what the Nazis did to them. Oil, steel, coal went to Germany in massive amounts to help the Nazi war machine win the battles in the West. It's the Rooseveltian propaganda that created "Uncle Joe" and the poor innocent Russians who were "just like us" trying to survive. BS. As for the Polish lack of support for the Ghetto Uprising, name the factory that was producing weapons for the Polish underground.
Sweden was selling iron ore to Germany, Swiss were doing their banking. Fact is, if you didn't sell, you would get attacked. Russia did not want war as far as I can tell, they were ill prepared for it. Germany did not really want to attack the USSR, but they felt sooner or later the communists would attack. Germany played an instrumental role in the Russian Revolution so its not surprising there would be links. Germany and Russia are natural allies. Britain has always worked to keep them apart. As far as weapons I assume they came from prewar Polish stocks, Allied air drops and captured Nazi weapons.
Look, what's to say? The Soviet Union entered the WWII on September 17, 1939 by attacking Poland and the Baltics in concert with Hitler. Plenty excuses, attempts at white washing and "explanations". In the end, the fact remains. As for Polish weapons, I invite you to look at the pictures from the Warsaw uprising in August of 1944- over a year after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. See the arms carried by the insurgents. Home made hand grandes, Molotov cocktails, home made machine pistols, old rifles and completely useless handguns. The fact is hardly anyone knew that there was going to be an uprising in the Ghetto and as soon as it started, the Nazis completely cut it off from the rest of the city. And there were hardly any drops from the East in 1942-43 and but a trickle from England due to the extreme distance.
That is not really the whole truth. Fact is the USSR entered Poland quite a while after germans 16 days almost. If they were really working in cooperation, they would have attacked at the same time and Poland would have 2 fronts to defend. It was only when Polish resistance was collapsing did the USSR swoop in to grab half of Poland. At this point Poland was already a defeated nation and USSR had a choice of Germans on their border or pushing their border to the middle of Poland. What choice would you make?
False. The Russians entered Poland and the Baltics in fulfilment of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. The division of Poland was pre negotiated. There's a reason why Polish historians (and not only) call the 17th of September, 1939 the Fourth Partition. Inconvenient history, I know- too bad. It is undeniable that the Russians were not any kind of ally to the West. Above all they made the Hitler's assault into France and the Low Countries possible by securing the Germany's Eastern border and preventing Germany's greatest fear- the conflict on two fronts.
It was prenegotiated, but only because Germany did not want Russia to attack them preemptively and Russia also did not want to get into a war with Germany. Germany was gonna attack Poland anyway. Russia stood by and observed what was happening and only entered when Poland was defeated. Poland had a standing army of 1m, this was quite significant, and Russia by no means expected the Germans to steam roll through Poland they way they did, no one expected this. They expected Germany to get into a long bloody battle and that suited them just fine.In fact it was desirable. But when Poland collapsed, they moved fast as they really had a lot to lose and everything to gain. Germany had territorial claims and there was no chance they were not going attack.
Most Canadians miss an important issue: these parades are not cheap and Russia is not a very wealthy country. The amount of money spent each year in Moscow just on avoiding the rain during the parades was an internet joke for many years now. Most Russians would prefer these money spent on social payments instead of parade, but, unfortunately, noone believes in Russian government anymore. You know that Russia spent very little on social payments during COVID despite almost no government debt and huge positive balance in the "Russian national wealth fund and Russian reserve fund". In fact, they even start to increase them recently. But make no mistakes: these funds will never be used to benefit the citizens, it will only be used to pay Putin's friends.
P.S.: there is no reason to talk about what happened 80 years ago: what is happening now is more important. Unfortunately, the internal politics of Russian government is to talk about WW2, not about its economical, political, and freedom problems. Just keep in mind: if you talk about Russia and discuss WW2 instead of current situation - you play their game. If you want to talk about Russia - talk about Navany, Navalny's fund, Ukraine, poisoning, Russian money abroad. This is what is important. WW2 ended 76 years ago and talk about it is just a diversion from the crimes that Putin is committing now.
P.S.: there is no reason to talk about what happened 80 years ago: what is happening now is more important. Unfortunately, the internal politics of Russian government is to talk about WW2, not about its economical, political, and freedom problems. Just keep in mind: if you talk about Russia and discuss WW2 instead of current situation - you play their game. If you want to talk about Russia - talk about Navany, Navalny's fund, Ukraine, poisoning, Russian money abroad. This is what is important. WW2 ended 76 years ago and talk about it is just a diversion from the crimes that Putin is committing now.
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That's revisionism inconsistent with the actual agreement made between the Germans and the Russians- especially the secret protocol that spelled out the division. Your argument is as valid as the official post war spin, that the Soviets entered the conflict to "protect" the indigenous populations. Actually, even the discussion of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact was censored and prohibited from mentioning in the Soviet Block- that's how proud the Communist were of their alliance with the Nazis.
As I said the British signed an agreement with Hitler as well, it was to buy time. Chamberlin has been condemed by history for it, but the UK did not relent in massively moving its economy to full war time production even after "peace in our time". When Russia was told of Germanys intentions to attack Poland, what realistic options did they have? Defend Poland? (well we know Russians are not fans on Poland to start) , or make a deal to get what they can in terms of territory, buffer zone and security. What if Russia had said NO DEAL. How would that work out better for them? Or even Poland?
In August 2009, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) researchers estimated Poland's dead (including Polish Jews) at between 5.47 and 5.67 million (due to German actions) and 150,000 (due to Soviet), or around 5.62 and 5.82 million total.[7]
So would it have been better for Poland if the Soviets said no deal and Germany occupied ALL of Poland? I think a strong argument can be made that the Russian occupation was much less terrible then the German one.
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